


Prompt: An Eye For An Eye

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [121]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bikers, Codependency, Gen, House of M References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 17:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10858860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: Wanda’s clinic is but one of many; Sokovia has a few of it’s own, charity clinics and aid clinics and emergency stations set up byMédecins Sans Frontièresafter the last time a dictator nearly caught hold of their country.It worries Wanda that they’ve never really left.Wanda’s clinic, however, was set up because she asked. Because Father will deny her nothing. Because she wanted to help, as Mama had, because it is the right thing to do. Father had fronted the money, and Wanda had made in back in donation after donation, Sokovians happy to have a Sokovian face to explain their woes to and not some unknown do-good foreigner.





	Prompt: An Eye For An Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucdarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/gifts).



> For lucdarling for the prompt "Mafia AU", with permission for this alteration later given.
> 
> This fic kind of wanted to become a huge unwieldy monster but I insisted on keeping it to a short lil AU. If someone wants to give this the multichapter write up it wanted, however, feel free, just give credit.
> 
> Written while listening to [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tha8j0VJgA).

**i.**  
Pietro does the thing you’re not ever supposed to do and leaves his bike on the kick stand. He pulls the keys from the ignition, the helmet from his head, but both are still in his hands as he runs to Wanda’s clinic - as he sees the smashed in windows, the ruined shelves.

“Wanda!”

She rises, slowly, from behind the counter, eyes wide and scared as they’ve not been since they were ten and Mama had been killed.

Since Father became a monster in vengeance.

“Oh _thank mother_ ,” he breathes and crushes her to him. They do not thank god. They do not believe in god, but they believe in Mama who’s way with their father calmed him, who’s wisdom guided them, who’s charms protected them. 

He does not doubt that it is the fingers of their ghostly mother who kept her safe.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
“What happened?” Pietro asks when he lets her go, when she’s sat on a chair in the stockroom, hands cradling a cup of chamomile tea. “Where are the others?”

Wanda wipes away tears with the heel of her hand, takes a deep breath. “I sent Katerina home. Marya wanted to clean up the shop, but I told her to tell Father. Then I texted you.” She takes another deep breath, sips from her cup, the steam coiling up over her face. “I was in the back. I heard glass shatter. Marya yelled. Katerina was treating a child, one of Andrej’s street kids.” She looks up, her eyes meeting her brother’s. 

“Pietro,” she says. “It was police.”

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
“Come with me,” Pietro says to her when they walk out to the back. “I will get my men, they will clean the clinic up. Clean the shop up. But come home with me. You will be safe there.”

Wanda considers, nods, pulls her helmet on. Where Pietro’s bike is a gleaming blue, hers is glossy red, as red as blood, as red as her nail polish today. She rolls her bike off its stand, swings a leg over. “Father will want to speak to us,” she says.

Pietro nods, sighs, pulls her helmeted head over so he can press a kiss to it’s black gloss. “Speak to _you,”_  he says. “Blame _me._  See you when we get there.”

Wanda nods, fires up her bike, and makes her way to Pietro’s.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
Father is angry. This is unsurprising; since Mama was killed he has always been angry. He is angry at those who killed Mama, even though they have always been out of reach. He is angry at the world for taking Mama from him and that has never stopped. He is angry with the police for not helping with Mama, and he is angry with them for opposing him now even though he _breaks the law_  and it is their _job._

Right now, however, he hates the police for almost hurting his Wanda, his one reminder of Mama (to him, Pietro does not count), and for damaging his first legitimate business.

“Calm, Father,” Wanda says, her hand is gentle on his arm, and she knows this will stop nothing.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Sokovia is a poor country. This is a fact. Sokovia is a war-torn country. This is debatable. Sokovia is an unstable country. This is certain, and since Mama’s death Father has been stuck on seeing it made stable under his certain thumb.

He will not have more bombs going off. He will not have more wives killed, more children buried in rubble.

“Stark,” he hisses between his teeth, as though Stark Industries is to blame for all their troubles.

Perhaps, Wanda muses sometimes, it is. Were it not for the bomb being made and sold, Mama would never have been taken from them, they would never have been trapped, Father would never have been desperate for their safety.

But it was, and they are. 

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
Wanda repairs her clinic. Father’s business in steel provides the money - loaned to Wanda with no need to ever pay back, for Wanda is the favourite, and Pietro depends on his sister for the protection that Father withholds from him.

“You must protect your sister,” he has always said. “Protect her as I failed to protect your mother. _Nothing must harm her.”_

After the bomb, after two days buried in rubble, Pietro does not think he could do anything but protect his sister.

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Wanda’s clinic is but one of many; Sokovia has a few of it’s own, charity clinics and aid clinics and emergency stations set up by _Médecins Sans Frontières_ after the last time a dictator nearly caught hold of their country. 

It worries Wanda that they’ve never really left.

Wanda’s clinic, however, was set up because she asked. Because Father will deny her nothing. Because she wanted to help, as Mama had, because it is the right thing to do. Father had fronted the money, and Wanda had made in back in donation after donation, Sokovians happy to have a Sokovian face to explain their woes to and not some unknown do-good foreigner.

Sokovians remember their debts, after all, and will pay what they are owed. Men who would have had bad legs forever after a break joined Father’s gang or his business. Women with grease-covered fingers fix bikes in tiny out-of-the-way sheds. Children run messages, unnoticed in the throng of street children - orphaned or homeless or both - that fill the city of Novi Grad.

Sometimes Wanda looks at it all and thinks: _if this is our capital, what do the other towns look like?_

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
When people knock on her door, Wanda opens it. Katerina tends injuries and illnesses, Marya and Wanda man the shop. When the bell rings, however, Wanda waits, and the others stay back. Wanda, to almost everyone in their neighbourhood, is untouchable.

The man who enters the room looks nervous and a little ill-of-health himself. The hair on his head is fine stubble, just growing through and the bags beneath his eyes look as though they have only started to fade.

“Hello,” he says. “Are you Wanda Maximoff?”

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
The man’s name is Vision Stark, and Wanda almost quakes to hear his surname. He is, he says, an aid worker, insisting after his near-brush with cancer. “Its why,” he says, running a hand over his new-growing hair. “It all fell out with the chemo.”

“My father,” he says, “Is looking into trade agreements with yours - his steel and copper are some of the best quality this side of the Atlantic. And your father said: Maybe, but I do not see you offering help for the damage your weapons have done to innocents.” He shrugs. “So I am here. To offer help.”

There is something very frank in his manner, very honest, and Wanda thinks he does not fully know the dark side of his father’s company. She knows, as well, that when Father knows Vision Stark is here, he is going to use the son against the father.

He has never let go of his vengeance.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
“Pietro,” whispers Wanda, standing in the doorway to his room.

Pietro rises without a word, and offers her a hand. She sits on the squeaking edge of his bed. 

“Tell me,” she says. “What is Father planning?”

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
Father is planning this: to stage an attack.

All his effort to go from nothing to gang leader to legitimate businessman were solely in the aim of this vengeance and he will not give it up now. He has lured Vision Stark to Sokovia, has made Tony Stark gift his only living son to them, and now he plans to take him away, just as Mama was taken from them.

“He _can’t,”_  Wanda says and Pietro laughs and teases and wipes her tears away with his thumbs. 

“So attached to him already?” he asks with a smile. Wanda slaps his hands away.

“No,” she says. “Not that.”

Pietro’s hands are gentle on hers, his gaze serious.

“Tell me,” he says.

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Killing Vision Stark means this: killing an innocent. Killing an innocent for an innocent is an eye for an eye but an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, killing innocent for innocent makes one as bad as another. 

Killing Vision Stark means this: chaos. Chaos and cruelty, Americans rushing in at the will of Tony Stark, for the death of one of their own. Means their father taken from them, the business inspected, the gangs wild, the clinic gone-

“Leaves us,” Wanda says, “With nothing but each other all over again.”

Pietro does not mind this, has never minded this, but he knows that Wanda, with nursing school, with the clinic, with _friends,_  does not wish to loose what she has gained.

Pietro’s first loyalty has always been to his sister.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
When the attack is planned, Pietro intervenes. Takes Vision, pulls the man onto his bike and takes him to Wanda’s clinic. Vision knows this place, is at home here, and will be safe here - everyone knows that Wanda’s clinic is hallowed ground, is sacrosanct, is sanctuary, untouchable. Since the attack, even the police have gone back to acknowledging this.

Wanda, however, isn’t there. Wanda swings off her bike, leaves it on the kick stand, and marches into her father’s office.

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
“An eye for an eye,” she says, and she is as angry as mother was at injustice, as furious as Pietro could burn, and with all of Father’s purpose. “An eye for a _fucking_  eye, and that will make the whole world blind.”

Father rises. “Wanda-”

 _“Erik,”_ she says, because she will not call him father when he would throw them all away. His wince tells her it hit home. “Do we mean _nothing_  to you?”

“The business-”

“This was not about business.”

“Your mother-”

“Would not have wanted this.”

“He is _Stark’s_   _son.”_  

Wanda pulls herself taller, lifts her chin. “He has already had his brush with death.” Father blinks. “His parents have already grieved him and been relieved as you were with us. They already lost their elder son. _An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”_

Father looks at her and seems, for the first time, to see her, and not Natalya.

“Wanda,” he says. “Do you really wish to fight this? I know I have spoiled you. Given you everything you asked for - your bike, nursing school, the clinic. But do you think I will give you this? My men-”

Wanda laughs.

 

* * *

 

 **xv.**  
His men come to her to be patched up. To her and Katerina and Marya. His men go to Pietro when they are worried because Pietro will go to Wanda who will go to Father and who will make sure no one is unduly punished. Father’s men are _her_  men, for all intents and purposes, she knows everyone in his office by name, knows all the bikers by name - Ned and Alexis and Ivan and Yasha - and the women in engineering too, Illyana and Christina and Urzsula and their children and their mothers and their brothers.

“Your men,” she tells him, “Are not stupid. Do this and they will leave you because you care more for vengeance than your duty. They give loyalty and muscle, you give work, you give protection. You do this?” she gestures at the paperwork on his desk, the header in big bold letters _Stark Industries,_  “You will lose that.”

Father is. He is shocked. He is silent.

Wanda places her fists on the desk, looks him in the eye. “You would have given up Pietro for this,” she tells him. “Let him get caught in the crossfire.” She sighs, but does not blink. “Daddy? No more vengeance.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


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